Thursday, January 31, 2013

A simple little contest provided an opportunity to do an integrity-check, and what I found surprised me. Integrity matters, and it seems that it is slipping, in even simple and small things.

I occasionally participate in blog hops where people visit your page, complete some little task, and then are entered to win a prize. Easy stuff, right?

Most bloggers who host a stop on these hops participate in order to get new followers, or in some cases, to introduce people to a new book they are writing, or maybe to a product they are selling. The effort on the part of the participant is a few seconds, the chance to win is fairly small, and the prizes are generally valued at under $25. In my case, it was a $25 restaurant gift certificate.

I recently asked people to pop over to my web site and read a little blurb about a new book I'm writing, then post that they did it. That's it. The book's not even out, and I doubt most of these visitors will remember it when it does debut, but it gives me a little feedback, and provides an opportunity to touch base with my regular followers and meet a few new ones. It's very nice.

Everyone who says they popped over to the site gets an entry. The old honor system. It's turned into an interesting moral experiment.

I've never checked to see who did and didn't follow the directions before, but I noticed a much higher volume of people saying they did compared to the daily stat report I get. Yes, I can see the stats. I know how many people actually stop by, and if I care to check, I can identify who did, what time, from where, and their server's address. I didn't do all that, but here's the rub: the actual number of visitors was less than a third of the number of people who said they stopped by.

So, am I being a nut job for being concerned that adults fibbed in order to be entered to win a prize? It's not the cause of ripples in world peace or anything . . . or is it?

Does it strike anyone else as worrisome?

Are honesty and integrity values we expect in others anymore?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, as a writer, as a woman, as a grandma of kids growing up in this world.

In my generation, parents took their kids back to the store to return a purloined pack of gum, and we knew that lying, stealing, or swearing, (though occasionally risked) was a second cousin to bank robbery, treason, and becoming a complete reprobate. We also knew that parents could cause much greater suffering than any cop, because they could make restitution humiliating enough to obliterate the immediate thrill of bad behavior, and it would last f o r e v e r.

We proudly passed these lessons on to our own children. We were the scary parents, the ones who WOULD find out everything, and who then would make the doer pay dearly to win back lost trust. And you know what, we hardly ever had to initiate any discipline protocol because, as my adult daughter revealed to me, "We were a little bit afraid of you, but mostly, we never wanted to disappoint you."

So are these values still alive in our society? Sing them out. I need to hear a few amens from the chorus.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Debuting author Kelli Ann Morgan kicks off
her Redbourne
Series, a satisfying new foray into historical western/romance, with a charming
offering titled The Rancher. Each
book in the series is set to center on one of seven sons of the fictitious,
wealthy Redbourne family. The Rancher
features middle-born Redbourne son, Cole, as its protagonist, and readers will
be pleased with Morgan’s choice.

From the back of the book:

The deal was to share the
ranch, not her heart...

ABBY MCCALLISTER can ride and shoot better than any
man she’s ever met, but when the threat of losing her ranch forces her to find
a husband, she is unprepared for the mysterious stranger who takes her hand and
evokes in her a sudden desire to be a lady fit for his arm.

He'd sworn to protect her. He couldn't do that if she
married someone else...

COLE REDBOURNE, immersed in guilt over the accident
that claimed his best friend, discovers there was nothing accidental about it.
When he sets out for Silver Falls, Colorado, to fulfill his friend’s dying wish
and to flush out his killer, the last thing he expected was to find hope again
disguised as his impromptu bride.

One stinging requirement stands between Cole and a lofty
inheritance of prime ranchland. He must marry. There are plenty of eligible
young ladies willing to oblige the handsome, rugged heir, but Cole is burdened
with guilt following the murder of his best friend, Alaric, and blames himself
for not being there to save his friend.

Two duties must be satisfied before Cole can think of moving
forward with his own life. He must avenge Alaric, whose final cryptic words lead
Cole to the Silverhawk Ranch where Cole believes he will find Alaric’s murderer—and
he must find and protect Alaric’s intended—a young lady Cole knows only by name—Abby.

The book opens with a humorous scenario incongruent to the action
and tone of the remainder of the book. Abigail McCallister can’t reconcile why
her widowed, loving father has consigned her to such an unjust fate. Devoid of suitors,
and better equipped to break a horse than woo a man, Abigail must find a
willing groom and marry by Friday or agree to be shipped away from her beloved
Silverhawk Ranch to an aunt in Denver. She knows she lacks the feminine charms
men seek, but judging her holdings in the Silverhawk to be a tempting dowry,
she heads to town and offers herself as a prize to a willing suitor.

The reader
spends several chapters fretting over the chaos about to ensue, and Morgan
paces the action nicely. Her writing style is smooth and easy, and her research
into 1880 Colorado ranch life consistently dropped delightful nuggets of
information on every page.

The tension ramps up quickly as do the number of questions
to be answered. Morgan’s plot twists tease with a wide array of
possible solutions that leave the reader guessing and head-scratching to the
end.

Again, though we enjoy the journey, it is the characters and
their struggles against man, against nature, and against their own
demons, that really keep the pages turning. By the time the book finishes we are intrigued by all the Redbourne brothers.

Morgan has done an excellent job juicing the salivaries for the next book in the series, The Bounty Hunter, Rafe’s
Story, whichis being readied for publication.

This satisfying clean-read western is suitable for
readers of all ages and either gender. The
Rancher can be purchased on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.

I'm pushing on with the completion of my current WIP--"The Rabbits (or "The Dragons) of Alsace Farm," (I'm still conflicted) which I'm slated to present to an agent in May, so we'll keep entering this hop short and sweet.

This blog hop allows us to give away something any book lover or blogger would love, and since we all love to eat, my prize is a $25 restaurant gift card.

Please note that each entry MUST be posted separately to be considered. Thanks! Here we go.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Our youngest son Josh works in L.A. in the medical field, and over the past year or so he's become friends with a former Green Beret and Special Forces Medic who works in the same hospital. Rob shared some stories from his days in the military, and told Josh he was actually in the process of getting his adventures published. Josh connected us and I offered to read Rob's rough manuscript. I'm grateful and changed by the privilege.

Most Americans are blessed to be completely insulated from war. News reports of daily operations affect us less than a video game playing in the next room, and yet that very comfort and complacency is purchased for us by people who stand on invisible lines, far removed from home and family, placing life and limb in extreme peril in the most dangerous places on earth. A few of these soldiers have given the extra measure to become the most highly trained and specialized peace-keepers on the earth. And if you think the term peace-keeper seems improperly applied to a warrior, read on and hear what a Special Forces soldier will tell you about his dream of peace.

Rob's book is titled, "Love Me When I'm Gone." It's not a literary read. While it's smartly-written, it was not composed by a trained writer. It was written by a Special Forces soldier, in soldier speak, about a soldier's life. It is a boots-on-the-ground Special Forces soldier's story, but in truth, it's written to tell every soldier's story, and the story of families torn apart for months and years, and forever sometimes. It's a story every American needs to read. I gave this book 5-stars in my reviews because it's the most important book I read in 2012. It left me feeling humble and guilty for being so blessed and doing so little to honor those who keep my life so peaceful. It changed me. It will change you too.Rob agreed to an interview. I tried to pose some questions that would help readers understand the heart of these bigger-then-life warriors. They are fathers, and husbands, sons and brothers. They get lonely and learn to shut their feels off, attuning their loyalty to their brothers on the line. They do all this for you, and for me. I hope you enjoy the interview. My review of "Love Me When I'm Gone," follows in the next post, including links for purchase. Laurie

***

Thanks for doing this interview, Rob. As you know, America is
fascinated by our Special Forces soldiers. I loved the glimpse you provide
readers into their exclusive brotherhood. I have to say, I had already
read your book when the attack on Benghazi went down, and I felt such an
agonizing connection to those Special Forces guys who waited for backup
that never arrived. Love Me When I’m
Gone drives home the loyalty SF soldiers have for one another. It’s
not a motto. It’s in your spiritual DNA. Can you speak to readers a little
about that loyalty? What went through your mind when you heard about
Benghazi?

That's
the best opening question I've ever seen, because you touch on a very
important issue that is absolutely integral to understanding the culture
of Special Forces and Special Operations.There are quite a few other books about Special Forces and Special
Ops guys on the bookshelves right now that are written by embedded journalists
or ghost writers, and it seems as if people are seeing right through them;
you can have complete access to SF guys, live, eat and sleep with them,
but being an outsider you will never capture the mentality, drive, and
spirit of the brotherhood.As I say
in "Love Me When I'm Gone,"
Green Berets aren't friends, we are brothers.The men from ODA 022 will always be my
brothers, and as long as I have breath in my body, I will take a bullet or
do anything in my power to help any of them in need.The Benghazi event hit very close to
home, not only because we lost some of our SEAL brothers, but also because
my old unit was called as a reaction force, and was the one staged in
Sicily but told to stand down.

I especially
loved reading about your training. You wrote that Special Forces soldiers
become the best by doing the basics over and over until it’s muscle
memory. I know there’s a lot more that separates Special Forces soldiers from
the rest. Describe the selection process, what you went through to be
selected.

That is
one of the very important aspects of Special Forces that require us to
stay at the top of our game; people concentrate on Selection, but the
truth of the matter is you are being evaluated every day of your SF
career.I write about Bee-Sting
competitions in "Love Me When
I'm Gone," but the real fact of the matter is that every day on a
team is like Selection.There is a
term in Special Forces of "finding your rucksack in the hall,"
which is the SF way of kicking someone off of a team for losing their
step; you literally walk up to the team room one morning and find all of
your stuff in the hallway, meaning you're no longer welcome!

To answer your question, Selection is an amazing
experience, and it truly does separate the men from the boys. Most soldiers in the Army are taught to
follow orders, and most soldiers' careers are spent taking orders from
someone else, telling them exactly what to do.Besides being the most physically
demanding month of your life, Selection is also geared to separate those
who can operate on their own, completely independently, with nothing more
than a mission.As discussed in the
book, an ODA (team of Green Berets) is usually just given a vague end
state, and it's up to us to figure out the what, when, where, why and
how's to accomplish the mission, rather than having all of that handed to
us from higher.To find the guys
who are best at doing that, Selection pushes you to the very limits of
your physical and psychological being, and then gives you a very complicated
problem to solve in the state that a Green Beret normally operates: tired,
hungry, and on your own with little or no support.

I don’t think
most civilians appreciate the toll the families pay when their loved ones
serve in the military. Love Me When I’m
Gone alludes to that. What was hardest on Cindy, and how much does
worrying about loved ones affect a soldier's preparation for deployment?

The hardest thing for Cindy, and any Special Forces
family I think, is not knowing. By the very nature of our job most of what
we do is classified, and the places we go we're normally far off the
beaten path.Because I was in
Germany and Cindy was in Los Angeles, "Love Me When I'm Gone" actually started as a collection
of journals that I kept for her; most of what we were doing I couldn't
really tell her about, both for security and her sanity, so I just kept
little notes of the time lines.When
we found out that we were going to have our son, I decided to turn them
into a better format for my son and the sons of my teammates, and as I
started showing them to the guys to make sure all of my events and
time lines were correct, they convinced me to turn it into a book.

The worrying does get to you, but to be a soldier in
the military these days you have to become an expert at coping and
isolating yourself from your emotions; whether it be 6, 8, 12 or 18
months, spending that much time away from your loved ones, in a combat
zone under constant threat is just too much to handle if you can't learn
to isolate those emotions and separate yourself.The biggest problem is that you turn
yourself into a stone, trying not to let emotions in or out, and then when
you get home, it's very difficult to go back to normal, which is where
most of the problems start.

I can't even imagine how hard that transition must be for some soldiers and their families. I loved the humanitarian
work your medical team provided in Africa. You wrote that helping a man’s
family was more effective at winning his loyalty than military might. Can
you elaborate on any experiences you had with that?

It really is the basis of Special Forces, and why
they're so selective with who makes it to a team.As an 18D (Special Forces Medic), we
would have days in Iraq or Afghanistan that would start off doing a MEDCAP
during the day, seeing patients and helping people from sunup to sundown,
and then go on a mission that night hunting bad guys.There is a reason that Green Berets are
the experts at COIN (Counter-Insurgency), and that's because we understand
that simple fact: if your only focus is killing bad guys, you will lose
because they always have the home-field advantage and can recruit
more.If you really get the big picture, and focus on taking care of
the people and showing them that we're not there as occupiers, we're not
evil and truly have human emotions, you win their "hearts and
minds" and make the bad guys' recruiting job a whole lot harder.The exact quote from "Love Me When I'm Gone" is:
"if you take care of a man, he will fight for you; take care of his
family, and he will die for you."It's a very true statement I can tell you from experience, and why
I support Veteran's charities like USA Cares (for which I'm a national
spokesman) and The Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

Does each branch
of service have its own Special Forces units? What’s the primary
difference within each since it seems you Green Berets did it all from
mountain fighting to water operations?

This is another point that I really tried to get across
in "Love Me When I'm Gone;"
we're over a decade in to the Global War on Terror and most people have
seen or read Special Ops movies, TV shows or books, but don't understand
the basic differences between the different units.In a nutshell, any time you hear the
term "Special Forces," it is referring directly to Green Berets
(we wear a tab on our uniforms which actually says Special Forces).The other units are Special Operations,
and there are a few main ones which are well known (Army Rangers, Air
Force PJ's and combat controllers, Navy SEAL's, Marine Special Operations
(formerly Recon and Force Recon).There are of course others, which don't like to be talked about, so
I'll leave them out here.

My favorite term about a Green Beret's job was from an
instructor I had in the Q-course (Special Forces Qualification Course),
and he used to say that a Green Beret has to be the "jack of all
trades, master of none."There
are a lot of jobs and missions in Special Forces, but our main purpose is
Unconventional Warfare (UW), also known as Guerilla Warfare.It's another point I try to teach in the
book (in the Scotland chapter), that life in Special Forces is a
whirlwind, especially in my old unit, 1/10 SFG(A).

You can be in Germany training one week, Africa hunting
rebels the next, Iraq or Afghanistan the next month, and then another
African country training rebels to overthrow their dictator the next.We do Direct Action (kicking down doors
and combat), Foreign Internal Defense (training soldiers in the Army of
other countries how to fight), Special Reconnaissance, Counter-terrorism,
Counter proliferation, hostage rescue, Humanitarian Operations (like the
MEDCAP's in Africa), and Information/Intelligence operations.Basically, anything, anytime, anyplace.

Do you still
feel the urge to head off to battle? Does that ever leave?

Every day; you know it's funny, people usually think of
us as warmongers, but I think a Green Beret who's lost a dozen buddies and
has seen enough war for many lifetimes probably wants peace more than
anyone else.The difference is that
we're realists, and understand that the world is a dangerous place, full
of bad people, and we'd rather put ourselves in harms way to protect those
that we love instead of watching someone else do it.For me, it's more that I know my
brothers are out there in harms way, and it's not the war that I miss, but
wanting to be there to watch their back.

I have to say
how grateful I am that your guys are on our side. We have no idea how many
threats you and others like you have thwarted, do we?In Special Forces we
work very closely with the various intelligence agencies, and I can't remember
where, but one of the spooks we were dealing with gave me a great
quote...."every day that goes by and you don't hear of a terrorist attack
on American soil means that we're doing a great job."People either don't know or don't want to
believe just how many crazies out there are trying to do us harm, but I can
tell you from my experience, there are many more than most would think.My favorite Special Forces quote, taught to
all Green Beret's in the Q-course is: "We sleep soundly in
our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those
who would do us harm."

What do you miss
most since leaving the military?

My brothers; we still keep in touch daily, and they
were the sword bearers and groomsmen in my wedding, but I miss being with
those guys every day.

Love Me When I’M Gone is
biographical, but you did a terrific job of setting it up as the prequel
to an ongoing series. How much, if any, of Love Me When I’M Gone was fiction, and what will Rob be doing
in the sequel?

"Love Me
When I'm Gone" was 100%
non-fiction...and thankfully I did it the right way and got approval from
the Pentagon beforehand, so I can say that!The original version was twice as long
(around 250,000 words), but there were a lot of things that I just
couldn't put into a non-fiction book.....and most of them are going into
the fiction books.The very last
part of this book is true, and I was asked to go to an "organization"
after I left the Army.

In
reality, I talked to Cindy, and she said that she knew it was something I
had always wanted to do, but she couldn't be married to a guy that would
be gone more than I was in SF, in much more dangerous situations and with
even less communication from where I would be going.I'm currently working on 3 different
series of books (I have a dozen already outlined, 3 in various stages of
completion), but the one that follows "Love
Me When I'm Gone" is my life had I made the other choice and gone
"over to the dark side."

Thanks so very
much, Rob, for your dedicated service to the country, and for allowing
civilians to get a glimpse into this world. We owe all our soldiers an
invaluable debt, and your book reminds us of that. Many thanks to Cindy
and all the military spouses who serve America by supporting you at home.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain more
about it here and share it with your readers and fans! I really enjoyed my
time in SF, met some of the greatest men this world will ever see, and had
some experiences that I will always be thankful for.

If your readers would like to help, as I said earlier
I'm a national spokesman for the USA Cares organization, which raises
money for vets and active duty soldiers in need. You can visit my website at
www.LoveMeWhenImGone.comto find
out more about this amazing organization, what they do to help, and how
you can show your support.Thank
you!

Monday, January 7, 2013

One of my favorite books of 2012 was actually a manuscript
of a novel slated for a 2013 release, but this military stunner made it to
press before the holiday and studios are already talking about a film.

In Love Me When I’mGone, retired Special Forces officer Staff Sergeant, (SSG) Robert Patrick
Lewis offers readers a golden ticket inside the exclusive world of U.S. Special
Forces training and operations, and the tightly-knit web of brothers—Renaissance
men with unequalled skill sets, operating in the most dangerous places and
situations on earth.

This is not a sugar and spice tale. It’s a
boots-on-the-ground, blood-sweat-and-tears soldier story, told with a soldier’s
tongue in authentic soldiers’ speak delivered with occasional profanity and
frequent military acronyms that draw readers into this elite society of
brothers. Lewis’s dialogue conveys the urgency, pain, and frustration of war.
It is a hard read emotionally, because most readers will have a face slap of
recognition that we are too removed from the men and women defending our rights
and privileges.

Lewis offers biographical glimpse behind the camouflage,
beginning with the circumstances and events that set him on the road to
military service. Put up for adoption at birth, he considers himself twice
blessed to have had birth parents who allowed him the chance to be raised in a
nurturing, adopted family with a deep military tradition. His father left the
Navy and tied his hopes to a newly formed airline called Southwest, which Lewis
regards as a second family. Despite all this support, Lewis lost his bearings
following the cancer death of his mother. To rein his flailing son in, his
father enrolled him in a military academy whose structure and rules put Lewis
back on course.

Lewis returned to public school his Sophomore year and met a
charming Asian coed named Cindy Chiu who secretly won his heart. After
graduation, the two went their separate ways with only brief interactions, and
then they lost contact for several years. Lewis was headed for a degree in
business when 9/11 happened, and he chose to enlist in the Army in the hopes of
becoming an Army Ranger. In Lewis’s own
words:

At
my fathers urging I enlisted in the delayed entry program, which would allow me
to finish out my college degree before leaving for Infantry basic training
(boot camp). Less than a month after I walked across the stage and took my
diploma from Texas State University in 2003, I was on a plane to Ft. Benning,
Georgia to learn how to be an Infantryman, then off to Airborne school, then to
Ft. Bragg, NC for Special Operations Prep and Conditioning (SOPC, the first of
many weed-out courses designed to convince the weak to leave of their own
accord), followed by Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) and the
beginning of my two years in the Special Forces Qualification Course (the SFQC
or, more commonly, the Q-course), being assessed and tested every single day on
whether or not I had what it took to serve my country as a Green Beret.

Lewis is quick to point out the
sacrifice families make when a soldier chooses the military as their vocation.
After years of no contact, Cindy Chiu found him through social media, and she
became his anchor, the person he dreamed of coming home to, the woman with whom
he dreamed of building a future. Love Me
When I’m Gone highlights the emotional toll separation and secrecy take on
these Special Forces’ loved ones.

I
still remember the day that I got her first message on MySpace; I returned from
SERE school the day before, and was still bruised, battered, emotionally
scarred and emaciated from spending a month as a POW in the North Carolina
woods.SERE is the Survival, Evasion,
Resistance and Escape portion of the Q-course, and it was the very last part of
my two-year journey of proving that I had what it took to wear the coveted
Green Beret.

Both
of my roommates were 18B’s, weapons specialists, Green Berets who can identify,
fix, rebuild, and operate any weapon in use anywhere in the world, had been
finished with the Q-course for several months.I had been selected as an 18 Delta, Special Forces Medic, which, while
it is one of the most coveted positions in all of Special Operations, adds a
full year of medical training, testing, and hospital rotations to your duration
in the Q-course.

As
luck would have it, she had been searching for me all along as well.Her first email to me was about three pages
long, and after a week of exchanging messages on MySpace we graduated to all
night phone calls.It was just like we
were teenagers again, and night after night I would stay on the phone until
just hours before I had to get up to go to work, and I was constantly operating
on just a few hours of sleep.

It
was only a few weeks later that my orders finally came down: I was being
assigned to the elite 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces
Group in Germany, with the first unit of Green Berets that had ever
existed.It was the most bittersweet
news I ever received; I had been hoping and praying throughout my entire time
in the Q-course that I would get this assignment to Germany, where my
Grandfather had been stationed after WWII and my father had spent his formative
childhood years, but now that Cindy and I found each other again it meant that
our paths would once again separate.I
could hear the disappointment in her voice the day that I told her, and it made
my heart sink.

Lewis takes readers right into this
specialized world. It’s not all bullets and blood. Readers feel the toll
inertia takes on warriors who are far from home, living in a state of
readiness, but like race horses in the gate, tense as headlines and orders
collide, delaying their release and insertion into battle. They fill the days
with more training, repeating skills until actions are so instinctive they are,
as Lewis calls them, “muscle memory.”

I was most impressed by the
humanitarian work performed by these specialized peacekeepers, particularly by Special
Forces medics like Lewis, who set up clinics to treat citizens in remote
outposts, laboring to win the hearts and minds of people. Says Lewis inLove Me When
I'm Gone, “If you take care of a man, he will fight for you; take care of
his family, and he will die for you."

Love
Me When I’m Goneruns the full spectrum of
emotions. I cheered, felt my stomach knot, cried, and in truth, felt guilty
that I was so unaware of the price soldiers and their families were paying for
me, and for you. The combat scenes insert readers into the human drama, and the
drama is intense. You understand in a new way how an individual can love
another so much that he would take a bullet to save a friend. Again, in Lewis’s
words:

It
is something that cannot be explained or even understood until you’ve lived it;
a man can’t know or fully appreciate his life until he’s been close enough to
taste the end of it, and the bonds forged in battle are some of the strongest a
man could ever have.We are brothers,
the men of ODA 022, and though we didn’t have the same blood running through our
veins, we had all shed the blood of others together, and knew that none of us
would hesitate to step in the way of fate and take a round or jump on a grenade
to save one another.

After leaving Special Forces, Lewis
began writing down his experiences to help fill in the gaps for Cindy, and to
record them for his children. He consulted with his comrades to make sure he
was getting the details and places right, and they were so moved by the project
they encouraged him to turn it into a book so the misconceptions about Special
Forces soldiers would be cleared up, and so people would simply understand what
they were doing on that invisible line. It took time to get the manuscript
approved by the Pentagon, and now that the book is out, Lewis’s main hope is
two-fold: to provide strength to military spouses and families who suffer high
divorce rates, and to support Veteran's charities like USA Cares (for which
Lewis is a national spokesman) and The Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

Love
Me When I’m Gone should be read by every American adult. Lewis cleaned up
the language to make it a read parents could share with their teens with some
prior editing. Will it jar your sensibilities? You bet. Will it change you? I
hope so. We owe an incalculable debt to these heroes and their families, and
understanding their sacrifice is a first step to repaying it.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Sorry for not posting in days. I've been sick as a dog. In fact, I feel incredibly sorry for any dog this sick, because this plague circulating around my neck of the woods is nasty.

Anyway, I've got two incredible posts going up in the next few days. One is a review of a bio by a Special Forces soldier named Robert Patrick Lewis, titled "Love Me When I'm Gone." This book is a perspective-changer, folks. You'll be humbled and feel a new debt of gratitude for these warriors. They are amazing. Lewis provides a rare glimpse into this tightly knit brotherhood.

I'll also be posting an interview with Robert Lewis, including his perspective on Benghazi, and the more tender side of Special Forces soldiers and their humanitarian work. Amazing. You'll be grateful they are ours.

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“A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.”-Woodrow Wilson